Visitors rise at city pools and libraries

MORE people are visiting Dundee’s leisure facilities, a new report has shown.

Attendances at attractions across the city shot up in the first half of 2016/17 compared to the previous year.

For each 1,000 people living in the city, there were 2,366 visits to swimming pools including Lochee and the Olympia — up by more than 300 — a rise of around 13%.

More folk also visited museums during that period.

The only statistic to drop was the number of attendances at indoor facilities run by the local authority, though it only went down by a small number.

Elsewhere under the council’s Leisure and Culture banner, there were improvements in the number of activities promoting reading across Dundee — with nearly 1,000 extra year-on-year.

Library visits were also substantially up, with 5,127 visits per 1,000 people in the population — a rise from 4,457 in 2015/16.

In addition, more people are loaning items including e-books, audio books and e-magazines.

And the city hosted 5,577 digital literacy sessions across the sixmonth period — a substantial rise from the 3,916 held 12 months previously. The figures were revealed in a report going before the council’s scrutiny committee next week.

The report said that library visitor numbers included virtual visits — which are expected to increase in the future.

It also detailed how digital literacy volunteers had delivered 1,956 hours of support throughout this period.

And the rise in e-reading resources is attributed to the addition of links to library website homepages, to make access easier.

Councillors will also be told of a series of other i mprovements across council services in the period leading up to September 30.

One of those is an improvement of 10% in the accuracy of benefit calculations in the city, while 10% more people are accessing council websites by mobile.